


Oh, It's You Again

by Virlomi



Category: White Collar
Genre: Alex as she usually is, EU, F/M, Old Friends, Paris - Freeform, There is a reason why Alex keeps coming back up, What happens after Fin
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-22
Updated: 2015-07-22
Packaged: 2018-04-10 15:08:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 3,033
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4396643
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Virlomi/pseuds/Virlomi
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Alex just knows things. Everything makes it back to her sooner or later. It's impossible to be a high end Fence and miss much.</p><p>In which, Alex finds out that Neal isn't dead and they figure out what that means longterm for their unusual friendship.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter One

It isn't as if Neal really misses the tracking anklet. Or the constant knowledge that Peter is looking over his shoulder using cyberspace. Or the knowledge that if he makes a single misstep, prison loomed again. No, he decidedly does not miss that.

But there are still some busy days when he reaches down to straighten the non-existent anklet, only to laugh at himself dryly.

On other more anxious days he catches himself trying to figure out if the next art show he plans to attend is within a two mile radius of his home before shaking himself back to the present.

On very bad days, particularly ones where things don't go his way no matter what he does, he almost feels as if he will turn around to find Kramer or one of the others waiting to lead him away to life imprisonment or it's equivalent in FBI service somewhere. 

On very, very bad days, he does all three of these things and more. 

Mozzie sometimes laughs at him, in a kind of helpless way, when he finds Neal sitting on the couch with his knees drawn to his chest and his fingers trying to play with the phantom piece of technology.  

Most days, Neal doesn't even notice his little habits anymore. 

He isn't as lonely as he had been the first few months. After all, now Mozzie spends months at a time here with him, (when he isn't back in New York spending time with his namesake and the Suits) he only has a decent wine collection occasionally and he knows the world hasn't completely forgotten him. Not everyone believes the story about his death. And that's comforting sometimes.  Mozzie couldn't know at once, of course, but he'd left the clues and known Moz would come through. He had, of course.

But the worst days are, oddly enough, the ones in early spring, when Moz goes home to New York to see Theo and Diana and Suits and baby Neal and Neal Caffrey himself knows he can't go with him and also knows it's for the best. Mozzie is one hundred percent in agreement that the Suits must not know.

But the days pass slowly, and he sleeps poorly at night, even though he's free now and the Pink Panthers can't hurt him and no one else knows he is alive.

 

 


	2. Chapter Two

When Mozzie has been gone for two days, Neal finds himself diminishing his own wine cabinet and painting strange impressionistic cityscapes for lack of anything better to do. Some of them resemble New York a little more than Neal can bring himself to admit, but some of them are right here out his window in Paris.   
He paints until 2 am before falling into his bed and dropping off to sleep, the alcohol allowing his busy mind to become drowsy at last.

Neal wakes up to bright sunshine from the window to the terrace and a text from Mozzie.

"Sold the paintings I brought."

He'd almost forgotten that Mozzie took some of his recent work to New York with him to sell. No forgeries. Just original work. Neal can't remember what all Moz took by now. He paints so much it's impossible to keep track of everything he's created in the past two years. He types a quick reply.

"Thanks Moz. Look at us, making honest money."

Mozzie is quick to shoot a text back. "I didn't say that, you did." Because it's impossible for Mozzie to admit to doing anything remotely pro-establishment. 

Neal isn't hungry, so he doesn't make breakfast, he simply gathers his tools together and does what he does every time he feels boxed in. He walks down to the center of town, sets up his easel on a street corner, and paints. Today, he paints a fountain to start with, sitting on his stool in the middle of Paris. His hat wants to blow away, but he keeps it on his head somehow, and he rolls up his sleeves to keep on painting. Folks begin to crowd around, as usual, and they watch him and make comments while he works. He laughs and talks to them, especially the pretty girls, and when he's done with the painting, he sells it to one of the bystanders and starts on another. All morning he paints, finishing two works by 1 pm, and at 1 he decides to take a coffee break. There's nowhere to sit in the shop, however, so he goes back to his stool and sits there, lost in thought. He finds himself pulling up his pant leg to check for the anklet and knows he's pretty out of it today. But ten minutes later, he does it again. And then he takes up his brush and paints again, all afternoon, until the sun goes down and the lights of Paris go up and Neal wants to go out to dinner, but there's no one to go out to dinner with and he somehow can't bring himself to find someone tonight. Most nights he can. He can get any girl he wants. But tonight, his heart's not in it, so he just packs up and goes home.  
Back at his house, Neal pours himself wine and plans a robbery in his head, not because he will commit it, at least, not before Mozzie returns, but because he is bored and his mind needs stimulus. When it's had enough stimuli for one night, Neal reads. He's still trying to be the expert, even when there's no one to be impressed at his house.

In the middle of the night, Neal awakes to a sound, and he sits up quickly, looking out at the terrace. There's no one there.  
He lies down again.   
Then there's a tiny scuffling, almost undetectable, but Neal has ears attuned to the sound of anyone being where they shouldn't be.   
And there is definitely someone on the terrace.   
He draws back the brocade comforter and slides out of bed, getting into a robe without a sound. He opens the door to the terrace and looks around quickly.  
It's raining.  
There's no one there.  
No more sounds, no more scuffling, and nothing to be seen except the downpour. After a moment, he turns and walks back inside, shutting the door firmly behind him.   
Mozzie has installed a security system that Neal is sure could beat Fort Knox's, so he honestly isn't worried. Paris is beautiful, but finding a rat or two isn't unheard of.

He returns to sleep.   
It isn't until morning when he finds it. He is eating pastry on the terrace, drinking Italian Roast coffee, reading the New York times. It's feeling very much like June's house when he happens to look down. 

There's a soaking wet yellow origami flower at his feet.


	3. Chapter Three

A first, Neal thinks he is mistaken. The yellow paper is soaking wet, it could be anything. It doesn't  _have_ to be an origami flower.

But when he bends down and picks it up, he knows it is. And it can't be a coincidence that it ended up on his terrace last night, when he thought someone was there. 

_Alex._

Impossible. Alex was long gone out of his life anyway. Ever since the whole scenario played out with the submarine and Vincent Adler and the events thereafter, Alex Hunter had made it pretty clear that she was out of Neal's life to stay.

What was it she called him? A "beautiful fantasy that's just out of reach."

Neal doesn't think she's reconsidered. Alex isn't the type to be sentimental where people are concerned. She's more likely to carry a piece of the music box around forever than to carry a memory of a person around for more than a couple of years.

Besides, according to all involved, Neal Caffrey is dead and has been dead for a little more than two years now.  While he doesn't doubt Alex could find anyone she wants to find, he knows she hasn't been looking for him.  There is no reason why Alex wouldn't assume he was dead along with everyone else, and even if she had her doubts, she wouldn't care to find him anyway. Whatever they had has been over for years.

So how, and more importantly, why, has Alex reappeared again?

Of course, she hasn't actually reappeared. An origami flower is not a personal appearance. 

But as Neal turns the flower over in his hands, he realizes that there are ink splotches on it. Something had been written on the inside. Perhaps Alex had put it under the awning, but the wind blew it out into the storm last night. 

Neal unfolds the wet paper gently, and tries to make out the writing inside. It's smeary, and it's impossible to tell if it's Alex's familiar old hand, but he can make out the words themselves.

_I know._

That's all. 

_I know._

Well, obviously she does. That's what the flower meant after all. But Neal thinks it's more than that. He thinks that it means Alex doesn't want to reappear. She just wants him to know that she knows and that is good enough for her. She expects that it will be good enough for him also.

She hasn't changed. He's still a fantasy. And she still loves to be a mystery. She appears and disappears in her own time. No one holds Alex down.

Neal thinks that's part of the reason he fell for her so long ago. She's just out of reach as well. 

He walks inside and uses a towel to dab the water off the paper flower. Then he lays it on the table so that it can air dry the rest of the way.

_I know._

And Neal thinks that's kind of comforting in it's own way. 

 


	4. Chapter Four

It's another two days before Neal has convinced himself that the flower on the terrace was real. During those hours, he has to look at it every few minutes to make certain he wasn't dreaming the whole thing. 

But he wasn't. The flower is always still there.

By the end of two days, Neal has come to terms with it and even stopped thinking about it more than once every couple of hours. He is occupied in painting, painting for money now, and he spends every day at his street corner.

Still, he can't sit there and not wonder some things while he paints. He wonders if Alex is still in Paris. He wonders what Alex was doing in Paris to begin with. He wonders if Alex found him accidentally while passing by on the street, or if she was told information that she had to follow up on out of curiosity. 

Sometimes he looks up suddenly from his canvas, almost convinced that if he looks quickly enough he'll see her go by. 

Sometimes he wonders if she's watching him right now. But even when he looks around carefully, he can't see any sign of her. He doubts she is in Paris anymore. Alex can't stay too long in one place.

He doesn't even know if he hopes she's still here or if he really hopes his old friend is gone now.  

At the end of the day, he's only finished two works, due to his distraction, and he sells them both for less than he usually would. He wants to go home and shake off the feeling of Alex's eyes on him. He knows they're not really watching him. He's just going a little bit stir crazy.

But when he opens the door to his house and goes upstairs, he feels it too strongly to be fake anymore. 

No, he doesn't feel it. He smells it. His whole upstairs smells like  _her._   

He walks quietly. This is starting to feel very real, and he isn't sure where he'll find her, but he is next to certain she is here.

She's not in his artwork room at the top of the stairs, so he continues on down the hall to his main room, one that he purposely set up to look a lot like June's upper room. An outlook on the terrace, his bed in the far corner, and he even had it built like a speakeasy because he was so homesick the first few months and he needed familiarity. 

But the real familiarity is sitting turned around in one of his diningroom chairs, facing the terrace, her handbag sitting on the chair next to her. 

Neal freezes for just a second, because even though he can't say that this surprises him entirely, it's still a bit of a shock.

However, his voice doesn't betray this, and his voice has years of practice faking preparation in circumstances like these.

"Can I get you something to drink?"

She turns around and smiles at him.  "Why else do you think I came by?"

He reaches for the wine with the ease of habit. "I'm not sure, actually. Maybe you were drawn by the idea of having a drink with the dead."

She laughs, just as if it were years ago and he was making a crime joke. "I never really believed it, you know."

He is silent, setting the glasses on the table and popping the cork on the bottle.

"It wasn't like you. Neal Caffrey, the art forger and crime expert extraordinaire, shot and killed by Matthew Keller? I'm sorry, Neal, I know you too well."

He smiles. "You and a few other people."

"Mozzie knows, I'm sure. He and you are never far apart. He'd never fall for it, even though I think it was your greatest con yet."

"He knows."  Neal pours the wine and hands her a glass.

"Don't spill it on your sleeve this time," she says, almost absently.

Neal forces a laugh, but it sounds real enough. "How did you find me?"

"I wasn't looking."

"You just got lucky?"

"Or unlucky, depends on how you look at it. You still owe me one treasure."  She takes a long sip of her wine.

"I'm afraid I don't have much treasure of any kind left," Neal says, and it's almost the truth. "So what wind of fate brought you here?"

"Well, I was casing a place not far from here..."

"You were on a roof," Neal says.

"You apparently know me well also. I was on a roof, casing a place, and I see this guy down on the street below painting. And he looked awfully familiar, but I don't know many people in Paris. So when I got down, I went by, and I saw you."  She spreads her hands wide and shrugs.

"But you'd heard I was dead. Perhaps I have a look alike."

"You don't have a look alike who checks for a phantom anklet at lunchtime."  She tosses her hair and smiles that seductive smile at him.

Neal smiles back, but makes a mental note to make certain he breaks that habit.  "You followed me home and left that yellow flower on the terrace. I figured that was all and you were gone."

Alex's smile freezes a bit, but holds steady in the end. "I know. But I'm leaving Paris tonight, and I thought...well, I thought a drink with an old friend was the thing to do."

One strand of her hair is out of place. Neal leans forward, tempted to reach over and fix it, but he doesn't know if it's his place to take care of her in any small way anymore.

"Thank you," he says, and his voice valiantly keeps from breaking. "I'm glad you did, Alex."

She finishes her glass of wine, looking at him all the while. He can't help but look at her as well, and think of how much they've shared, even the double crosses they've pulled. 

 _This_ is _Neal and Alex,_ she once told him after they'd conned each other once again. She is right. They are two sides of the same coin, vying for precedence over the other.

She sets the wine glass down on the table, stands up, and walks over to him. They're so close they're almost touching, but neither of them move for a moment, and then Alex closes the distance between them and slides her arms around him. Neal buries his face in her hair and they stand there for a few seconds.

Then Alex leans back and kisses him, and he doesn't know if he wants to kiss her back at first, but after a moment he does.

She pulls away almost too quickly, and he remembers again how she feels out of reach as well. Alluring, tempting, but not fulfilling. Never around long enough to satisfy.

And he knows why she thinks the same of him.

"I have to catch a plane," she says suddenly. She picks up her handbag and steps toward the door.

Neal stops her with her name. "Alex." 

She turns around, a smile hovering on her lips.

"Be careful."  He remembers saying that to her years ago in his apartment at June's house, the last time he saw her.

"You too," she says, opening the door. At the last second she turns and says slowly, "You still have my number, Caffrey. And I promised I'd answer."

"Sometime I'll call then, just to test you," Neal says, even though he isn't sure if he will.

"Goodbye, Caffrey.  See you around," she says over her shoulder.

"See you around, Alex."

She closes the door behind her, but the room still smells like she hasn't left, and Neal finds himself playing with the origami flower.  He doesn't still love Alex, not that way, but she is an old friend, and he doesn't have many of those now. And he is very glad she stopped by.  

After a while he stands up and pulls down the only box of stuff he has left from his old lives. At first, he tries to tell himself he's just looking through it for nostalgia's sake.

 

But when he finds a little white strip of paper with the familiar digits on it, he realizes he was looking for her number all along.  And someday, he realizes, he will call after all.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Alex and Neal have always had a complicated relationship, I think, and they'll never work out as a couple. But it's obvious that Neal cares about Alex and that she, even though she doesn't always admit it, cares about him as well.  
> And I can't see her falling for Neal's Greatest Con: his death.
> 
>  
> 
> Thanks for reading! I'm planning to write several more short stories about the characters we love from White Collar and what happens to them after the final season finale. I hope you'll get enjoyment from those as well.


End file.
